Ande Bhujia (Spicy Scrambled Eggs)

I woke up this morning (or as the Aussie in me would say “s’morning”) to an amazing day, even by London standards and despite the fact that it was 7:30am. So up I got, ran (okay, briskly walked. I don’t run. I’m not fooling anyone.) around the corner to get some eggs, chucked on some Lumineers and found something else in Rick Stein’s India cookbook I had acquired the day before. I came across this spicy scrambled eggs, which wasn’t anything particularly new. I’ve eaten dozens and dozens of breakfasts in Asia, all spicy. Plus I have eggs for breakfast a few time a week (yes, yolk and all!). It’s a good source of protein and keeps me full. I’ll put fresh chilli into my eggs whenever I have it around so this was no biggie, but I had never seen cumin added in eggs before.

Serves 1

vegetable oil

1/2 red onion, diced

1 fresh green chilli, sliced and with seeds

cracked black pepper

salt

1 tomato (large)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a frying pan (or I used a wok, just cause) over a medium heat. Most of the recipes are cooked over medium heat, which is different to my ‘get it as hot as you can without burning’ way of cooking in a kitchen, but by cooking slowing it seem to bring out the flavours so much more. Once it is hot enough add the onions and cook for 10 minutes and golden.

Add the chilli, black pepper and salt. The recipe says to add the salt to the beaten eggs, but I personally think that the salt draws moister out of the eggs that way, so I added it now. Whatever you believe works better. Fry these for 2 minutes, and oh my lord the smell of the cooking chilli is unbelievable!

Add the diced tomato and leave uncovered to cook for 5-10 minutes. I normally would quickly fry the tomatoes so that they are still quite firm once they are on my plate, but this way turns them into a jam consistency.

Lower the heat and add the beaten eggs. Don’t touch them, just allow to sit in the pan.

After a few minutes sprinkle with cumin and fold the eggs so that the rest cook through. Once done, top with a coriander leaves.

And the taste?

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

Like, no seriously, oh my fucking god. It was incredible! Way better then I expect. Kind of like how North Americans would eat their eggs with chilli sauce, except this actually had flavour! Like, a lot of flavour! I didn’t even use a fork to eat it. Just sliced a few slices of fresh white bread and used that to pick the eggs up with, just like they would with bread in India. It took a little while longer then it would take me doing it my way, but the difference in flavour was so noticeable. This is my new way of doing eggs!

I’ve found your blog while writing a recipe for spicy Turkish scrambled eggs. I didn’t know what I cooked was more like the Indian version. Ha! Good luck with your travels and if you happen to pass Turkey, I can introduce good Turkish food besides kebab. 🙂